CCTV Reporter Suffers Total Brain Meltdown During Live Interview About National Congress [UPDATE]

This interview never gets off on the right foot: the lag between the anchor and the reporter is a full five seconds, causing the anchor to make a “Why haven’t you acknowledged my greeting?” face.

Reporter Feng Yuxian, live from Dubai (that’s the Dubai Tower Burj Al-Arab Hotel in the background), then delivers her correspondence in fits and starts, stumbling over several lines. We feel bad for her because she’s getting no help from the anchor due to the lag, but then again, she’s in Dubai on the company’s dime. Specifically: she’s reporting on how Middle Eastern media is reporting on China’s 18th National Congress; yet again, we’re given reason to wonder how Chinese media has the money to send junior reporters around the world to report on subjects that are way over their head.

Just after the 2:40 mark, Feng can’t do it anymore. She looks away in disgust, and when she tries to pick up where she left off, her brain says: No. An exasperated sigh or two later, and we’re all just begging for the anchor to euthanize the segment.

He does not. Instead, he asks about how the Middle East views China’s rapid economic development as it pertains to future politics and policies. (The proper analogy here is a hitting coach throwing 92-mile-per-hour cut fastballs to his batter during a home run derby.)

But later, it is found that in The National, the Middle Eastern newspaper she held, what is below the fold is the headline “China warned of corruption peril.” Chinese netizens, with much schadenfreude, joked that she must have been too inexperienced at lying in the face of the camera to go on.

Thank you. You’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you the error wasn’t for lack of due diligence. I tried searching for ten minutes with and without a VPN, and the Internet here was crawling with homicidal intent. Bing was almost helpful.